


tell me, waning moon

by Binario



Category: BNA: Brand New Animal (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, Found Family, Gen, Grudging Tenderness, Introspection, Is that a thing, It is now, Quiet Angst, and, back again with the, this fic is full of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27112994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Binario/pseuds/Binario
Summary: Shirou stumbles upon an inflection point without really meaning to.
Relationships: Kagemori Michiru & Ogami Shirou
Comments: 2
Kudos: 57





	tell me, waning moon

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been itching to write something more for this fandom, but I’ve hit something of a dry spell as of late and writing has been kind of hard for me. However, I wrote this in a daze and finished it in like three hours. I was trying to emulate what a song makes me feel like and poof, a fic. I don’t know what just happened but I’m not complaining.
> 
> (When does this take place? I don't know, tbh. I like to think that in a pocket of space between the intro and the credits. You can place it whenever you wish to.)

He knows she’s outside.

Shirou’s had lifetimes to understand his own senses and then some. Sometimes, he just _knows_ things, like when he can see things far beyond the confines of his limited perception. Immortal doesn’t mean all-knowing, but he’s learned to push past the borders of his body to see beyond. It comes with the blurring of centuries, he thinks; live long enough and what you consider to be the perimeter of your own cognition chips away like mountains under rain.

He knows she’s outside like he knows this night is different.

He hadn’t really felt anything odd when he went to bed. Michiru had dropped by his apartment without warning ( _a habit she’s been adamant to keep for who knows why and had gotten particularly huffy when he questioned her intentions. **Teenagers**_ ) and he had relinquished the guest room begrudgingly. He hadn’t known her for long, but he had been way too tired to start an argument he was somehow going to lose. Michiru was like that; demanding, exhausting, and bold enough to lord him around when bigger men cowered at the mere mention of his name.

Lording him around in his own _house_ , for crying out loud.

(Kuro must find the whole thing hilarious)

There had not been any warnings at all. He had just woken up, a whisper of unrest prickling at the very back of his mind and followed his instincts to sit at the edge of the bed. The night is cold, not quite like winter but much too cold for summer, and there’s a certain tension in the air, faint enough to pass unnoticed if he had not been so attuned to the ebbs and flows of his own apartment.

He flickers an ear when the doorknob twists almost shyly. She slips inside as soon as the opening is big enough for her and he can immediately see that she’s been crying.

Whatever determination she’s gathered seems to vanish when she’s standing inside.

It’s eerie, seeing her so still. The Michiru in his mind is a creature of motion. She’s an anxious tapping of feet, a drumming of claws on furniture, a flicker of ears under the sun. Michiru is a whirlwind of opinion and single-minded stubbornness. Even the few times he’s seen her sleeping, (passed out on a chair or, in one peculiar and very perplexing instance, curled in the space between a bookshelf and the wall) she flickers and twists with restless energy, like she could spring to her feet and bolt in a heartbeat. It’s something so inexplicably _hers_ that he feels a wisp of unwanted worry for the phantom that stands in his doorway.

He sees something harden her resolve in the sudden set of her shoulders. The moonlight brings out a flicker of fierce light from her hooded eyes.

She marches forward, crossing the distance hurriedly like she’ll stop herself if she overthinks it. It’s both surprising and not when she plops herself next to him, close enough to know she’s there but far enough as to not touch him. For all of her sudden burst of bravado, the yawning distance between their shadows feels oddly hesitant. Michiru’s never been one to be deterred by boundaries. She’s wormed her way into the good graces of powerful people, whether she realizes it or not. She carries with her an earnest charm, a surprisingly naïve sincerity that he had dismissed as deceitful. Shirou has seen many suns rise and fall. He’s come to know many of the evils in the souls of society. He’s been scarred over and over throughout eternity, fought teeth and claw for plethora of ideals that are nothing but _basic decency_ and yet face an insurmountable resistance. 

No one is that candid. _Humans_ are not candid.

But he sees how the sliver of moonlight blankets her outline, sees how the gentle bands of light tremble along with her shoulders. She’s curled tightly, back arched almost painfully, as if the discomfort will be enough to chase away whatever shade is tormenting her.

He… doesn’t know what to think.

This girl, this _child_. This strange being that imposed her presence in his life. Shirou had seen the next hundred years as a monotonous line until the Mayor had rekindled that spark of hope in him. He thought, _finally_ , finally something to look forward to. Perhaps, in his own way, he has been sailing through time single-mindedly, frozen his existence until the landscape turns hazy and unrecognizable. He’s seen life pass him by, grow and wither and start again, while he remains immobile like the sun. Watching, waiting.

Maybe he doesn’t want that anymore.

He thinks that’s why he moves before he even goes through the motions of considering it. His hand is already hovering at the edge of the moonlit stream, still at the edge of the abyss, still safe to slither back to his corner. He pauses, but he’s long ago decided to leap in the dark, so it’s a mere formality for his own sake. 

He finds her head, hair damp with the slickness of sweat, cold with the residual shivers of a nightmare. She freezes at the touch, ears breezing past his hand as they flicker backwards, and he only realizes that she had been twisting the sheets into knots when she stills the nervous twitch of her hands. This moment, too, is tentative and fragile.

Shirou feels days go pass until she moves once more. Michiru rolls, uncurls and curls once more in her tiny corner of the bed. She hasn’t changed much of her position, still coils tight like she’s hiding, but the anguished tension has bled out under his hand. She makes a sound, a ragged whisper that might mean something and nothing, but her breathing evens down after that.

They don’t speak, let the silence hang subdued between them. Shirou is certain that, come morning, this moment will be locked away and buried under the moon. He knows this, and yet, he feels lighter than he’s been the past weeks, months, years. 

He breathes out and time resumes its pace.

**Author's Note:**

> _"Y las noches que haya luna llena  
>  será porque el niño esté de buenas  
> Y si el niño llora  
> menguará la luna  
> para hacerle una cuna"_
> 
> _"If the moon becomes  
>  full son is sleeping  
> But if she’s half then he’ll be weeping  
> So she’ll be his cradle  
> lower then diminish  
> and embrace him again" _
> 
> - _Hijo de la Luna (Son of the Moon)_ by Mecano


End file.
